English professors spend summer enmeshed in words

Essays and projects didn’t end after finals week for three South Dakota State University English professors, though now it’s their own work they must edit and present.

Professor John Taylor, resident linguistics specialist, presented excerpts from his paper “Teaching Lexicography and Lexicology among the Aliterates” at the biennial meeting of the Dictionary Society of North America, one of the largest professional associations in the world for lexicographers, people who compile dictionaries.

He was one of nearly 40 speakers who addressed peers and linguistics leaders, like Peter Gilliver, associate editor of the 20-volume “Oxford English Dictionary.” About one-third of the group’s 400 members attended the meeting from places like England, New Zealand, South Africa and the Netherlands.

Taylor plans to submit the full version of his essay to the society’s annual journal “Dictionaries” for future publication.

Looking at language closer to home, Paul Baggett, assistant professor of 19th and 20th-Century American literature and culture, is researching and writing a 40-page entry for the “Dictionary of Midwestern Literature” to be published in 2010.

The research, funded by the South Dakota Humanities Council, has Baggett steeped in a literary history of writers who have contributed to South Dakota’s culture and history. Highlighting the diversity found within the state, he shows how the literature of South Dakota has both local and global relevance.

Baggett's entry covers a long history, from ancient Lakota myths to more contemporary writings, and often reveals contrasting points of view.

Yankton-Nakota artist and political activist Zitkala-Ša, also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, and Norwegian immigrant Ole Rolvaag interested Baggett as writers looking at the settlement of the Dakota Territory from different cultural and gender perspectives.

More recent writers in Baggett’s study include Kent Meyers, author of “The Work of Wolves” and Black Hills State University English professor, and Christine Stewart-Nuñez, author of “Postcard on Parchment” and SDSU assistant English professor and coordinator of Women’s Studies.

From examining words used to create stories through building stories through photographic images David Faflik, professor of English and American studies, received a grant to exhibit archived photographs taken by Stephen F. Briggs, SDSU graduate and noted inventor of the Briggs and Stratton engine.

The historic photos will be housed in Crothers Engineering Hall until they can be moved into the South Dakota Art Museum after 2011. Faflik chose both high traffic locations to maximize student’s viewing of the photographs, so they can learn “both sides of Briggs—the practical and inspirational, the aesthetic and mechanic.”

Asking students to view and respond to art is part of a teaching method called Visual Thinking Strategies. The bulk of Faflik’s work with the project will begin in the fall when SDSU classes start. He plans to utilize VTS to increase student’s skills in thinking, seeing and saying.
 
“I’m very proud of our professors and all of their hard work this summer to represent the English department and SDSU,” said Kathleen Donovan, head of the English department.

“It’s wonderful that they can bring these experiences back into the classroom for the benefit of their students as well.”

Founded in 1881, South Dakota State University is the state’s Morrill Act land grant institution as well as its largest, most comprehensive school of higher education. SDSU confers degrees from seven different colleges representing more than 200 majors, minors and options. The institution also offers 23 master’s degree programs and 12 Ph.D. programs.

The work of the university is carried out on a residential campus in Brookings, at sites in Sioux Falls, Pierre and Rapid City, and through Cooperative Extension offices and Agricultural Experiment Stations across the state.



Photo: SDSU English professors, from left, Paul Baggett and John Taylor peruse pages of “Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition.” The English teachers, along with their colleague David Faflik, have spent their summers immersed in words and story.